Neighbor (ON HOLD)

Five

Semi-edited

I walked home to a note on the front door. "Man." I whispered, sadly. My dad was gone again. I walked into the house and locked up the door behind me. I went upstairs and took a nice, long, hot shower. My hair curled back up, but afterward it dried,  straighten it out again. Wrapping up in my towel, my phone buzzed so I hurried to it and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Its Kia."

"Obviously." I wrapped my arm around myself.

"Can you come for dinner or you got plans?"

I thought about my dinner plans: loneliness.

"No, I don't. Want me to come over?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. What time should I come?"

"Around dinn'ah 'tame. That's around 8 o'clock."

"8?"

"Prob?"

I shook my head. "No."

"See you then. What you gon be doing?"

"Just clean up, I guess."

Kia laughed. "Gurl, yo house always clean."

I smirked. "And maybe..."

"Eugh, wash yo hands afterwards!"

"Kia!"

She laughed again. "I'm jokin'. See you later." She hung up. I got dress into a comfortable, over sized short sleeve shirt and got to cleaning. I vacuumed my room, and the next two rooms which one was my father's. It was always clean. It was never touched. I dusted off his oak dressers and bed board. It was a little dusty. The other room was an guest room. A queen size bed with a bed stand and a store-able dresser stand. I put away the cleaner stuff for upstairs and went downstairs and mop the marble floor in the livingroom, kitchen, and dining room. I went into a short Z shaped hall where a door to a 3rd bathroom, a small laundry room and a fourth bedroom which we called the Chill Room was. Finshing up, I cleaned up the kitchen and by the time I was done, it was 7, almost 8. Wow, it took me that long?

I cleaned every inch of this house, I think. Smelling like chemicals, I went and took another shower. I got into a Tupac t-shirt and some comfortable pants for me to sleep in, because I wanted to stay with Kia tonight. I grabbed my phone and putted on a knitted jacket, I slipped into the casual sandals. I left my hair down my back and left the house safe and sound. I put the keys back into the emergency spot and begin to walk to her house

~~~~~~

"Alright, time to eat, yall!" Shannon called. Myself and Kia skipped down the stairs while everyone else rushed to the diningroom from the livingroom. They were playing video games. Kia and I sat right next to eachother. Daveon sat across from me while Roger pushed away one of his siblings to sit beside me.

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Kia who was helping her younger brother into the seat.

"Alright!" Shannon said, placing a bowl of Baked Beans onto the table. They all started to dig in.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Y'all know we say grace." They all froze and bowed their heads. I did the same.

"Barack, start with the prayer tonight, baby."

Barack had the most roughest voice for a 8 year old. "God, we thank You for the food that was cooked and received. We hope it would be a good one, keep looking after us, Lord and bless our stomachs. Amen." We all repeated 'Amen.' I opened my eyes to look up, but everyone head was still down.

"Oh." I said, quietly. I bowed my head again and whoever was next to Barack, they started a prayer. It took ten minutes for everyone to finsh each prayer. Some had long ones and some made short ones. Roger said his prayer so fast, I barely heard his words. Daveon made the funniest prayer I ever heard.

"Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this food, and humbly request that you perform a miracle and remove the calories from dessert. Lord, please demonstrate your mercy by blessing this food. I'm not a very good cook so it really needs it! Lord, please bless this sumptuous feast, and bless the pizza guy who delivered it. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for this food we are about to receive...well, everything except the liver and maybe the cauliflower. Amen."

Kia spoke up before anyone else did. "Do we godda say 'Amen' to that? That crap ain't even prayer." Everyone looked at her then at Daveon.

"Shut up, Kia. I know you got a kick out of that."

She jumped at him. "I'll kick yo as..." She trailed of her words.

"Jennipher, can you finsh the prayer?" Shannon asked over the nonsense. Finsh the prayer? I have to do that? Everyone had thier own little prayer, but I guess that's what she meant.

"Um, okay." I said, quietly. I bowed my head again. I spoke as clear and loud enough as I could.

"We didn't even order pizza!" a sibling sassed before I even spoke.

"Shoo didn't." Roger agreed.

"Can y'all shut up and let the girl speak to the Lord?" the dad tauted.

"Kia always runnin' her damn mouth. Shit." Daveon said.

"Go ahead, baby." Shannon said to me. I nodded and bowed my head once again.

"Dear, Lord, please bless the juice--" Roger laughed out loud.

"I...I'm sorry, but..." He laughed more. The dad glared at him.

Roger cleared his throat and looked back down.

I continued. "Bless the juice, the solid and whatever is brought to our stomach. Thank you for listening to this prayer, thank you so much for guiding us where You need us need to be. Forgive our sins that may some of us probably committed today. Keep us safe and sound, guide all of us with your power and need. We love you so much, Amen."

"Amen!" they repeated and digged in and that's when the chattering started. To me, I thought my prayer was weak, and everyone else's prayer was the shit. I shrugged and Kia had passed me a huge bowl of potato salad. I scooped up a cooking spoon full and dropped it on my plate and passed it to Roger. Kia passed me every single bowl of food so I passed it to Roger after I served or didn't serve myself.

The sound of silverware scraping against eachother really bothered me, 'cause all the sudden it just got quiet.

"Roger, I heard you was actin' up in class today." the dad spoke up. Roger stopped eatting and looked at his father who was sitting at the front of the table.

"Maaan, my teacher like me so she makes up some sh...stuff to get me detention so she can have some lone time with me."

"Come here, Rog." his dad said, pointing to him. Roger took a bite of his chicken before standing up and walked to his father.

"Come closer."

Roger leaned down and got smacked across the cheek. Soft laughter went around the room. "You talk SHIT about your teacher again, your ass will be in my detention, you hear me?"

Roger's face tightened. "You hear me?" the dad threatened.

"Yes, sir." he said, sounding a bit brittle. He walked back to his spot and sat down and glanced at me. I tried to hide the smirk so I looked down at my plate, stabbed a piece of steak with my fork and put it in my mouth.

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